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paperless Auto Tagging Scan Software

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I am looking for a sofware, which can auto add tags to documents based on the content. For example it recognizes the date: 01.01.2001 and adds a tag with date: 01.01.2001 or it recognizes the recipient of the bill Adam Smith. So it adds the tags Smith and Adam.

Then, to find the file later on, I just have to type Adam Smith and see all the files regarding Adam Smith and so on. I actually think it should be possible with todays hard- and software, but I couldn't find anything like that. I need it to realise my paperless buero ;)


I would really appreciate any help.


Best Regards,



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Hi - Evernote can't auto-tag,  but if you search untagged notes for "adam smith" bill 2001,  you'll get all his specific bills for the year.  Throw in "01.01" and you'll (probably - haven't tested it) get that specific bill.  Tags wouldn't be necessary.

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A work around like the one gazumped suggest is fine for short term or one off search needs, however accurate and consistent tagging is quickly becoming paramount to creating a searchable business data repository in the Evernote environment.

Software exists (Hazel) in the MAC world that can tag files based on content rules as described above.  Very useful in the MAC world.  However IF Evernote was capable of inheriting OS assigned tags coupled with Evernotes Import Folders, this could and would be an incredibly powerful organizational and productivity tool!  

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Yes, with the Smart Filing feature, Evernote now automatically puts in some tags. It's a step forward, but not nearly enough. We need auto-tag rules, similar to Gmail's filters, to catch what Evernote doesn't seem to be able to "learn" on its own. Here's why.

In the 15 years I've used Gmail, I've built up literally hundreds of auto-tagging rules (Gmail calls them "filters" but it's the same concept). I've done this because it makes it easier to find stuff in Gmail. All the concepts below that apply to Gmail would also apply to Evernote, to make it easier to find stuff in Evernote.

Here are some categories of auto-tagging:

1) Subset/superset relationships. For instance, when a note from a teacher calls out the name of one of my kids, Gmail automatically attaches the label "family". When a note mentions "401k", Gmail automatically attaches the label "Investments". When I receive a newsletter than mentions one of my company's competitors by name, Gmail attaches the label "competitor". You get the point.

2) Related concepts. When emails come from venmo.com and include the words "you paid", Gmail applies the label "receipt". 

3) Synonyms. My siblings have nicknames and commonly misspelled names. Gmail looks at all these, and applies an appropriate label for the sibling. That way I don't have to search for every permutation of their name or nickname.

Here are some examples of where I go through Evernote and manually tag items. It's a pain. Auto-tagging would save me a lot of time.

1. Apply tag corresponding to notebook name. So for example, everything in my Marketing notebook gets the Marketing tag. Everything in the Career notebook gets the Career tag. And so on. I put notes into one of a couple dozen notebooks. But sometimes a note could go into one of two different notebooks. For example, my career is marketing. So, sometimes I'll use the web clipper to pull in something that could go into the career notebook, and sometimes it goes into the marketing notebook. But to find it later, I'll tag it both "career" and "marketing". That say, since everything has a tag, just search by tag.

2. Tag by person name. Do a search for various spellings of my coworkers names, with quotes, as in "John Doe" or (mispelled) "Jon Doe" or nickname "Doe". Then apply a tag "johndoe". This makes it quicker to find meeting notes for that person. Or an article that was referred by that person. 

3. Tag by content type. Quick, what's the advanced search operator to find all notes with a PDF? It's resource:application/pdf. Not the easiest thing to remember, right? So I'll select all notes, search for resource:application/pdf, and tag as "pdf". Much easier to find PDFs. I'll also search for "docs.google.com/document/", "docs.google.com/spreadsheets/", and "docs.google.com/presentation/", and tag those "google doc", "google sheet", and "google slides", respectively. 

4. Tag by synonym. I take notes for an activity I do, sailboat racing. One type of boat is called a Vanguard 15. But articles I pull in through the web clipper might refer to "V15" or "Vanguard 15". I search for both, and apply the tag "Vanguard 15".

5. Tag by superclass. Also in the realm of sailing, I'll put in articles on boats that are called Knarrs, J/70s (also written J70, without the slash), J/105s, (and, J105), and so forth. All of these are a type of boat called a keelboat. So I'll do all those searches and apply the tag "keelboat". In the realm of work, when I clip an article that contains the word "GDPR" or "HIPAA", I'll add the tag "compliance", againn to make things easier to find.

6. Tag by related concept. Someday I'd love to race a boat to Hawaii, and I use Evernote to gather information I'll need to do those, since you're pretty much on your own in terms of packing food, surviving a gear failure (or worse, sunken boat), and so on. There are two main races, Pacific Cup on even years, and Transpac on odd years. They pretty much have the same challenges. When I use web clipper to pull an article with "Pacific Cup" in it, I apply the tag "transpac". Vice-versa when the article contains the word "Transpac". 

Yes, that's a lot of tagging. And I do even more. All to make it possible to locate notes among the thousands I have in Evernote. Hopefully this shows how auto-tagging would be useful.

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In ScannerPro (iOS) it is possible to create workflows. I have created several of them, all pointing to different notebooks in EN. Each one carries some tags related to the type of document saved. So it is possible to assign a set of tags to each workflow. My 10 workflows cover appr. 70% of all scans done with my iPhone in one step. For the rest there is a standard workflow into my EN-Inbox.

I scan, tap the „share“-button, select the appropriate workflow and the upload starts. The note will automatically carry the tags assigned to it by the workflow.

This helps some. The tags are static, so they are independent from the actual content of the scan. But a „receipt“ will be tagged as „receipt, 2019, ScannerPro, payed, taxes“ and imported into „Accounts“ if the workflow is set up this way.

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1 minute ago, PinkElephant said:

Nice service, and fair pricing.

Maybe I give it a try ! 

I’ve just found my way back to it. I used it all the time when they first started, but they didn’t have the option for business notebooks back then. Now they do and I can honestly say it really does help on the back end of processing once you get it set up to do what you wanted to do. 

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+1 for Filterize

Been using it for a couple of weeks and already it is automating a lot of my tagging and moving of notes directly into notebooks

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